Family Room Part Two

Finally....more pictures of the family room!!!

We have the ceiling completely finished. I stained the original beams Minwax's "Dark Walnut" to make them stand out a little more. Then we under-laid them with heavy bead board that interlocks, letting the bottom show (you can see more about it here). I painted the boards Glidden's "Swan White" in a high- gloss so that the sun light would reflect off of the ceiling.

Both the overhead light and the sconces are from Lowes. I was determined to find sconces that looked like old fashioned oil lamps and I was so excited to find these ones on the Lowes website.

When I first started to envision this room years ago I knew I wanted to find a salvaged mantel piece that was in shabby condition with its original white paint. I thought it would take me years to find it and that when I did find one it would be out of my budget.

I was wrong thankfully! This past summer my mom and I drove a whole bunch of cans of paint that we didn't want to a lady in Volant, PA that has an antique shop. As I was walking around the outside of her shop I saw this mantel leaning on the side the house. I knew as soon as I saw it that it was the one! Shabby...check, original paint....check...., the right size...check...., simple enough...check! I quickly hurried inside and told the owner I might be interested in the mantel she had outside and asked the price (I was panicking inside that it would be out of my budget). She said that since it was so kind of me to bring all that paint that I could have the mantel for $90!

Hurrah, I could afford it! I mean it seems like a lot of money compared to the $25 I spent on the mantel in the living room but I have been to the Country Living Fair and I know what people pay for these sometimes. And it looks like it was always meant to be in the room. My mom and I taking the ride to Volant that day was a spontaneous trip and I always think to myself if we hadn't gone there that day I wouldn't have this beauty. I actually ended up getting a bunch of really great stuff that day that I will show over time. The ironstone bowl on the ottoman was one of those things costing me a whole quarter.

The wicker chair is also a lucky find, I was beyond excited to find it at the Goodwill for $20. It was already white and a cushion I had bought for $5 fits on the seat perfectly.

We plan on having a real fireplace put in as soon we can afford it but for now I put a basket I picked up for $5 at the flea market inside the mantel.

I love the way the floor came out. To recap this is the original floor that we ripped up and then layed back down once this part of the house was leveled. It had about 4 layers of paint on it and about 150 years worth of grime and dirt.

This is the room during the reno, when I took this picture we had already taken the dropped ceiling down.

During renovation, floor taken out.

Neal spent days and days running the hard wood flooring through the planer. He left some of the blue paint showing on some of the boards for a weathered look. Then he laid it back down, staggering the seams as much as possible. We ran out of the original floor once we got back to the last couple rows, we bought poplar boards to finish because they took the stain the way the rest of the floor did. Now that the room is done you can't even tell they aren't the same.

This is the floor after it was laid back down but before I stained it. 

 I used the same stain I used on the beams on the floor, I then put 2 coats of semi-gloss polyurethane over it. I use old t-shirts for the staining part and a brush for the polyurethane, going down the room left to right board by board. It made for lots of long nights but worth it in the end. This was the first time I tried using the fast drying polyurethane and I was very pleased with the results.

I can't wait to sit in my kitchen and have a crackling fire going in there (Neal is SOOO sick of hearing me say that).

I bought these antique railroad stakes at a thrift store, not sure what the story behind "Lakeside Lover" being written on them is but I think its neat.

More pictures of the room to come! And let me know if there is anything about this room that I didn't cover that you would like to know about!

Saturday Spotlight and Burlap Feed Sacks

There are a couple things that I had wanted to share with you yesterday but I was really really sick, well actually first my son was really really sick, it has been a long week to say the least. We are both feeling semi-unzombie like finally so I wanted to let you know that I was honored to be Susan's from Must Love Junk Saturday Spotlight Blogger  yesterday! You can head over there if you want to read a little bit about me and my family. Like I wrote in the post, I was a little hesitant at first because I am so private and I have always been really self-conscious but I have received so many wonderful comments and emails from people and I am so glad I did it! While I was laying there sick it was wonderful to read all the of the nice things you guys had to say. And I have gained quite a few more followers, so many thanks Susan:)

One of the other things I wanted to share with guys were these awesome burlap feed sacks that I found at the Online Fabric Store.

It is a burlap feed sack style bag with a reproduction print on it, they have 2 styles and are only $9.05 each (actually they were $9.95 when I bought mine) plus the shipping is super cheap.

I was looking on Ebay for some grain sacks to drape over the backs of my chairs when I saw an advertisement for these. I couldn't believe the price and they were perfect for what I wanted them for, plus they are that wheat color that I love so much.

I figured you guys would want to know about these!!! If you didn't already:/

The other one has a cow on it and you know how I feel about cows:)

We are putting up the trim along the ceiling in the family room today so if all goes as planned I will be able to show the whole room this week! FINALLY! Thanks again for all of the sweet and thoughtful comments and emails you guys send me, they always make me smile, even when I am a zombie:)

New Family Room Reveal Part One

Okay so we don't have the new family room quite "finished" yet, we still need to do all the trim work, but I figured you guys were getting tired of waiting so I decided I would just show it to you anyways. Please ignore the fact that there is no corner trim or outlet covers on yet:)

This is the left side of the room if you are standing in my kitchen looking into the back yard. I had many years to think about how I wanted this room to be, what was most important to me was that we had lots of windows and that it felt bright and cozy at the same time. I also always knew that I wanted it to be covered floor to ceiling with bead board. We kept the trim simple to match the rest of the kitchen. I painted the walls and the trim Glidden's "Swan White".

My goal is to find a giant piece of salvaged molding for above the three windows behind the couch.

To give you an idea of where you are seeing below is what it looked like in the summer during the rebuilding process after the wall was taken down separating the two rooms.

The picture below (that my son took) is of the wall during reno that the couch is now on.

I was really lucky to find the perfect pieces for this room, most of them costing less than$15. The coffee table and the wall unit pictured below both came from the same estate sale. Over the summer I was on my way to the mall to try on dresses for my sister-in-laws wedding when I spotted an estate sale. My son was with my mom and I actually had cash in my wallet so I figured I would stop real quick. I went into the house and I found a couple things but nothing too exciting. As I headed back to my car I spotted a garage off to the side of the property that I had somehow missed (my estate sale rule is to always hit the garage first cause that is usually where the old stuff is). I walked into the garage and it was a jack pot! I found two old tables, tons of farm goodies, totes, primitive tools, and the wall cupboard pictured below. I was grabbing stuff left and right and putting it in a giant pile, people were looking at me like "why would she want all that junk". It just goes to show you should always stop because this was a tiny 1970's house in a very residential area.

The cupboard wasn't even actually for sale but when I asked the woman who was running the estate sale if  I could buy it she said "sure if we can get it off of the wall". You should have seen us trying to get this thing off of the wall, it was filthy and had a lifetimes worth of mouse poop on it and was screwed to the wall with at least 20 screws. It took a good half hour to pry it loose but we got it down! She said it would be five bucks and that everything in the garage was half off that day!

I knew just where it would go when I bought it but I had to wait patiently for the day we could actually hang it. It looks just how I pictured it could, the women at the estate sale were so excited that I was going to make it cute. It is made with all different salvaged pieces, the shelf with the scale on it is a little door cut in half and I love the wire shelf. I scrubbed it multiple times and painted it Glidden's "Antique Beige".

The coffee table was also five dollars. It was a regular size table and I just had Neal cut the legs down. I didn't do anything to it except scrub it and put a coat of polycrylic on the top to protect it from spills and wipe downs. I left the estate sale a sweaty dirty mess, it was 90 degrees that day and on top of it I had to squeeze everything I bought into my car. I was actually there so long that the women started to refer to me as "The Renovator":) Needless to say I didn't feel oh so fresh and clean as I was trying on those dresses.

 The table in the corner under the cupboard is the one I picked up at the flea market for $15 dollars this past summer. I painted it Martha Stewart's "Sisal". The other end table is also new. I have always wanted to make a table with a sewing machine bottom and I was so excited when I actually found an antique sewing machine base at Savers (the greatest thrift store ever, you are so lucky if you have one) for $12! Someone had attached an ugly desk top to it, so I took that off and screwed an old piece of wood that I had found in the house when we first moved in to it.

And then as you get a look into the kitchen you can see that I have changed some things around in there. We brought the little cupboard down from the upstairs bedroom because I needed some more functional storage. I painted it Glidden's "Whispering Wheat" and added an antique knob that I picked up at the flea market.

I brought the desk in from the mudroom and put one of the tables I got from the estate sale in its place. I wanted something long and skinny for this space since you need to be able to walk through easily. Plus I love this table so much I wanted it in a place I would see it more.

It makes for the perfect little office space which is great because try as I might I always end up doing all of my Etsy work in the kitchen and my son always does his school work here.

I really love the way everything turned out in the family room but what I love most are the giant windows that allow us to see into the backyard from this part of the house now. It always drove me crazy that I couldn't really see into our backyard and our woods unless I was in the guest bedroom.

Seeing "my deer" come through in the morning while I drink my coffee brings me the greatest joy. Plus they let in so much light it makes such a difference in the kitchen.

We special ordered the windows from Anderson so that they would be the exact same size as all of the other large original windows in the house.

And to give you an idea of how far we have come in case you are a new follower I wanted to show you the stages of this area of our house. The picture below is what is now the kitchen but it was a small and dark bedroom when we first moved in.

If you look in the left hand corner you can use the pot belly chimney (where Neal is working) to show you that it is the same space, minus a lot of nastiness, in both the above and below picture.

And below is what you can now see when you stand in the same place (and yes I painted that cupboard, post about that to come).

I hope you enjoyed Part One, in the next part I will show the room as a whole and go into more detail about the flooring and lighting. I have been getting lots of specific questions about things lately so I thought I would start doing posts that address readers questions since more than one of you might be interested in the subject matter. For the first one I am going to address the lighting in our farmhouse and my painting techniques. Feel free to email me if there is something you would like to know more about!